The American Mafia, commonly referred to in North America as the Italian-American Mafia, the Mafia, or the Mob, is a highly organized Italian American criminal society and organized crime group. The terms Italian Mafia and Italian Mob apply to these American-based organizations, as well as the separate yet related Sicilian Mafia or other organized crime groups in Italy, or ethnic Italian crime groups in other countries. These organizations are often referred to by their members as Cosa Nostra (; ) and by the American government as La Cosa Nostra (LCN). The organization's name is derived from the original Mafia or Cosa Nostra, the Sicilian Mafia, with "American Mafia" originally referring simply to Mafia groups from Sicily operating in the United States.
The Mafia in the United States emerged in impoverished Italian immigrant neighborhoods in New York's East Harlem (or "Italian Harlem"), the Lower East Side, and Brooklyn; also emerging in other areas of the Northeastern United States and several other major metropolitan areas (such as Chicago and New Orleans) during the late 19th century and early 20th century, following waves of Italian immigration especially from Sicily and other regions of Southern Italy. Campanian, Calabrian and other Italian criminal groups in the United States, as well as independent Italian-American criminals, eventually merged with Sicilian Mafiosi to create the modern pan-Italian Mafia in North America. Today, the Italian-American Mafia cooperates in various criminal activities with Italian organized crime groups, such as the Sicilian Mafia, the Camorra of Campania and the 'Ndrangheta of Calabria. The most important unit of the American Mafia is that of a "family", as the various criminal organizations that make up the Mafia are known. Despite the name of "family" to describe the various units, they are not familial groupings.Roberto M. Dainotto (2015) The Mafia: A Cultural History pp.7-44
The Mafia is most active in the Northeastern United States, with the heaviest activity in New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, New Jersey, Pittsburgh, Buffalo, and New England, in areas such as Boston, Providence, and Hartford. It also remains heavily active in Chicago and has a significant and powerful presence in other Midwestern metropolitan areas such as Kansas City, Detroit, Milwaukee, Cleveland, and St. Louis. Outside of these areas, the Mafia is also very active in Florida, Phoenix, Las Vegas, and Los Angeles. Mafia families have previously existed to a greater extent and continue to exist to a lesser extent in Northeastern Pennsylvania, Dallas, Denver, New Orleans, Rochester, San Francisco, San Jose, Seattle, and Tampa. While some of the regional crime families in these areas may no longer exist to the same extent as before, descendants have continued to engage in criminal operations, while consolidation has occurred in other areas, with rackets being controlled by more powerful crime families from nearby cities.
At the Mafia's peak, there were at least 26 cities around the United States with Cosa Nostra families, with many more offshoots and associates in other cities. There are five main New York City Mafia families, known as the Five Families: the Gambino, Lucchese, Genovese, Bonanno, and Colombo families. The Italian-American Mafia has long dominated organized crime in the United States. Each crime family has its own territory and operates independently, while nationwide coordination is overseen by the Commission, which consists of the bosses of each of the strongest families. Though the majority of the Mafia's activities are contained to the Northeastern United States and Chicago, they continue to dominate organized crime in the United States, despite the increasing numbers of other crime groups.
Fictional accounts of the Mafia have long been a part of popular culture, especially since Mario Puzo's The Godfather was released in 1969. Francis Ford Coppola's film adaptation of the novel further contributed to romanticised accounts of the Mafia as well as The Sopranos.
Terminology
The word mafia () derives from the Sicilian adjective mafiusu, which, roughly translated, means "swagger" but can also be translated as "boldness" or "bravado". In reference to a man, mafiusu (mafioso in Italian) in 19th-century Sicily signified "fearless", "enterprising", and "proud" according to scholar Diego Gambetta.This etymology is based on the books Che cosa è la mafia? by Gaetano Mosca, Mafioso by Gaia Servadio, The Sicilian Mafia by Diego Gambetta, Mafia & Mafiosi by Henner Hess, and Cosa Nostra by John Dickie (see Books below). In reference to a woman, the feminine-form adjective mafiusa means "beautiful" or "attractive". In North America, the Italian-American Mafia may be colloquially referred to as simply "The Mafia" or "The Mob"; however, without context, these two terms may cause confusion as "The Mafia" may also refer to the Sicilian Mafia specifically or Italian organized crime in general, while "The Mob" can refer to other similar organized crime groups (such as the Irish Mob) or organized crime in general.
History
Origins
Background
The first published account of what became the Mafia in the United States dates to the late 1860s. New Orleans newspapers reported that the city was experiencing a war between Sicilian gangs. The names of these gangs corresponded to the Sicilian cities their members came from — Palermo, Trapani, and Messina.
Sicilian crime groups in the United States first became influential in the New York metropolitan area, gradually progressing from small neighborhood operations in poor Italian ghettos to citywide and eventually national organizations. "The Black Hand" was a name given to an extortion method used in Italian neighborhoods at the turn of the 20th century. It has been sometimes mistaken for the Mafia itself, which it is not. The Black Hand was a criminal society, but there were many small Black Hand gangs. Black Hand extortion was often (wrongly) viewed as the activity of a single organization, because Black Hand criminals in Italian communities throughout the United States used the same methods of extortion.
Giuseppe Esposito was the first known Mafia member to immigrate to the United States. He and six other Sicilians fled to New York after murdering eleven wealthy landowners, the chancellor and a vice-chancellor of a Sicilian province. He was arrested in New Orleans in 1881 and extradited to Italy.
From the 1890s to 1920 in New York City the Five Points Gang, founded by Paul Kelly, were very powerful in the Little Italy of the Lower East Side. Kelly recruited some street hoodlums who later became some of the most famous crime bosses of the century - such as Johnny Torrio, Al Capone, Lucky Luciano and Frankie Yale. They were often in conflict with the Jewish Eastmans of the same area. There was also an influential Mafia family in East Harlem. The Neapolitan Camorra was very active in Brooklyn. In Chicago, the 19th Ward was an Italian neighborhood that became known as the "Bloody Nineteenth" due to the frequent violence in the ward, mostly as a result of Mafia activity, feuds, and vendettas.
New Orleans was possibly the site of the first Mafia incident in the United States that received both national and international attention. On October 15, 1890, New Orleans Police Superintendent David Hennessy was murdered execution-style. It is still unclear whether Italian immigrants actually killed him, or whether it was a frame-up by nativists against the reviled underclass immigrants. Hundreds of Sicilians were arrested on mostly baseless charges, and nineteen were eventually indicted for the murder. An acquittal followed, with rumors of bribed and intimidated witnesses. On March 14, 1891, after the acquittal, the outraged citizens of New Orleans organized a lynch mob and proceeded to kill eleven of the nineteen defendants. Two were hanged, nine were shot, and the remaining eight escaped."Under Attack" . American Memory, Library of Congress. Retrieved February 26, 2010."1891 New Orleans prejudice and discrimination results in lynching of 11 Italians, the largest mass lynching in United States history" , Milestones of the Italian American Experience, National Italian American Foundation. Retrieved February 26, 2010.
Prohibition era On January 16, 1919, prohibition began in the United States with the 18th Amendment to the United States Constitution making it illegal to manufacture, transport, or sell alcohol. Despite these bans, there was still a very high demand for it from the public. This created an atmosphere that tolerated crime as a means to provide liquor to the public, even among the police and city politicians. While not explicitly related to Mafia involvement, the murder rate during the Prohibition era rose over from 6.8 per 100,000 individuals to and within the first three months succeeding the Eighteenth Amendment, a half a million dollars in bonded whiskey was stolen from government warehouses.Abadinsky, Howard. Organized Crime. 7th ed. Belmont, California: Wadsworth/Thomson Learning, 2003. pg. 67 The profits that could be made from selling and distributing alcohol were worth the risk of punishment from the government, which had a difficult time enforcing prohibition. There were over 900,000 cases of liquor shipped to the borders of U.S. cities.Gervais, C.H, The Rum Runners: A Prohibition Scrapbook. 1980. Thornhill: Firefly Books. Pg 9 Criminal gangs and politicians saw the opportunity to make fortunes and began shipping larger quantities of alcohol to U.S. cities. The majority of the alcohol was imported from Canada,Phillip. Rum Running and the Roaring Twenties. 1995. Detroit: Wayne State University Press. Pg 16Butts, Edward, Outlaws of The Lakes – Bootlegging and Smuggling from Colonial Times To Prohibition. 2004.Toronto: Linx Images Inc. Pg 110. the Caribbean, and the American Midwest where stills manufactured illegal alcohol.
In the early 1920s, fascist Benito Mussolini took control of Italy and waves of Italian immigrants fled to the United States. Sicilian Mafia members also fled to the United States, as Mussolini cracked down on Mafia activities in Italy. Most Italian immigrants resided in tenement buildings. As a way to escape the poor lifestyle, some Italian immigrants chose to join the American Mafia.
The Mafia took advantage of prohibition and began selling illegal alcohol. The profits from bootlegging far exceeded the traditional crimes of protection, extortion, gambling, and prostitution. Prohibition allowed Mafia families to make fortunes.Butts, Edward, Outlaws of The Lakes – Bootlegging and Smuggling from Colonial Times To Prohibition. 2004.Toronto: Linx Images Inc. Pg 109Hallowell, Prohibition In Ontario, 1919-1923. 1972. Ottawa: Love Printing Service. Pg ix As prohibition continued, victorious factions went on to dominate organized crime in their respective cities, setting up the family structure of each city. The bootlegging industry organized members of these gangs before they were distinguished as today's known families. The new industry required members at all different employment levels, such as bosses, lawyers, truckers, and even members to eliminate competitors through threat or force. Gangs hijacked each other's alcohol shipments, forcing rivals to pay them for "protection" to leave their operations alone, and armed guards almost invariably accompanied the caravans that delivered the liquor.Mason, Phillip. Rum Running and the Roaring Twenties. 1995. Detroit: Wayne State University Press. Pg 42Butts, Edward, Outlaws of The Lakes – Bootlegging and Smuggling from Colonial Times To Prohibition. 2004.Toronto: Linx Images Inc. Pg 230